The Tuesday Poem: “One Day”, from the Ithaca Conversations Sequence

One Day

He sits in the wide door to his father’s house,

playing with toys,

crudely painted soldiers with gilded helms,

gleaming in the sun.

His nurse tells him he is a prince,

will be a king some day, and a warrior;

his mother stoops, whispers,

tells him of his father who is king,

long lost, long sought,

longed for …

One day, she murmurs,

lips soft against his sun-warmed hair,

one day—a world full of longing,

echoes of an endless sea,

all encompassing.

After, he will always see her thus:

standing in the empty...